The general perception of citizen about the dangers of air pollution
Introduction
Understanding the perception of the general public and their attitude towards the air quality and its regulation involves shifting towards new technology and management. While pollution in the air remained to be one of the major risks in the different parts of the world, and many studies and many surveys were conducted regarding the perception of the general public towards it. This is also because of the complex interactions between the livelihoods, poverty and the various sustainable development of the developing countries. This paper also highlights the same topic, and due to the recent outbreak of Corona that is declared as a pandemic by WHO, it is more inclined to that topic. In this study, thorough research was done in this topic, and many research problems were found that were discussed. A research question was done by the team that will be followed throughout the assignment, and in this research, many new methods were found in order to stay away from air pollution.
The general perception of citizen about the dangers of air pollution
Around the world, out of 10 people, nine of them are consuming unhealthy air. It is said to be one of the biggest environmental risks nowadays, as many deaths are happening due to the breathing of unhealthy air. Each year people are dying because of strokes, respiratory diseases, heart attacks, diabetes and many more which is more than people dying from AIDS and Cancer combined. Air pollution is mainly vulnerable to children, and elderly people with existing diseases. It is very hard to escape no matter how posh area one is living in. It is all around. Even healthy people can be affected due to unhealthy air during outdoor activities or exercise. The perception of the citizens about the danger associated with it is mainly associated with the various health effects that are caused by it. High level of air pollution can cause respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular diseases add more stress to lungs which results to decrease of oxygen supply in the body. Long term acquaintance to polluted air results in permanent health effects such as aging of lungs. Development of cancer, bronchitis, asthma, emphysema. Lung capacity gets affected, and life span gets shortened day by day. It also affects sternly to pregnant women, children under the age of 14, elderly people and athletes who exercise outdoors.
The increase of air pollution also affects the environment as well. It affects the changing in the climate of different regions and leads to the disturbance in the production of food. The global temperature is increasing at an average of 8°C, which results in global warming. Pollutants like nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons when combines with sunlight form a smog that causes allergies and respiration problem. Gases such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide when combines with water forms sulphur and nitric acid respectively and comes down in the form of rain which adversely affects the environment. The depletion of the Ozone layer by the various types of hydrocarbons, such as CFC’s results in the incoming of UV rays. It is also very harmful to the human being as the results are clearly visible in countries like New Zealand and Australia where the rate of skin cancer is higher than other countries.
Evolution of air pollution by human-made sources
Humans are also responsible for air pollution as the activities that they do either indoors or outdoors, causes air pollution. Various kinds of activities that are done by human are mentioned below:
- Activities related to agriculture – Using of various kinds of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides during the time of doing various agricultural activities releases various detrimental chemicals into the environment that leads to the air pollution as well as water pollution.
- Mining operations – Mining is one of the processes where the minerals that are beneath the surface of the earth are extracted by different methods. During this process, different kinds of chemicals and dust particles are released to the atmosphere that causes immense air pollution.
- Burning of fossil fuel – When fossil fuel such as petroleum, coal gets burned sulphur dioxide gets released to the atmosphere that causes air pollution. Moreover, gases that are emitted from vehicles, trains, aeroplanes cause air pollution.
- Exhaustion of harmful gases from industries and factories – Manufacturing industries are responsible for emancipating harmful gases in the atmosphere such as carbon monoxide, organic compounds and various chemicals that lessen the quality of air.
- Litter – The garbage that is released form everyone’s houses every day gets dumped in a place, and that generates an inflammable gas called methane which is also harmful to the atmosphere.
- Stoves in the kitchen – The stoves that everybody uses in the kitchen release nitrogen dioxide that reacts with oxygen forming nitric acid and other toxic nitrates that causes air pollution.
- Last but not least is the various kind of bad habits that human have, such as smoking, burning crackers, vaping, hookah are very much responsible for polluting the air.